At its annual investor meeting in Tampa, retail giant Walmart announced that over the next three years, it plans to convert 65 percent of its stores to a model of “automation.”At its annual investor meeting in Tampa, retail giant Walmart announced that over the next three years, it plans to convert 65 percent of its stores to a model of “automation.”
At its annual investor meeting in Tampa, retail giant Walmart announced that over the next three years, it plans to convert 65 percent of its stores to a model of “automation.”
In addition to laying off about 2,000 factory workers in the shorter term, the $388 billion multi-national corporation is eager to trim many more human employees in the coming years as it switches to a robot service format.
Currently, Walmart employs about 1.7 million people in the United States, along with another 60,000 people elsewhere. The goal is to eliminate as many of these positions as possible in order to replace them with automation, which the company says will increase its profits.
“As the changes are implemented across the business, one of the outcomes is roles that require less physical labor but have a higher rate of pay,” the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer indicated in a filing.
“Over time, the company anticipates increased throughput per person due to the automation while maintaining or even increasing its number of associates as new roles are created.”
To compete with Amazon, Walmart is slashing jobs left and right – remember when it used to brag about slashing prices? – and working towards automating pretty much everything except for the highest-paid corporate positions.
By early 2026, the company wants to have 55 percent of the packages it processes at fulfillment centers handled by automated robots rather than real humans. This is expected to improve unit cost averages by about 20 percent.
“This increased efficiency will not only support better inventory management, but it will also support Walmart’s rapidly growing e-commerce business,” wrote Stephens Inc. analyst Ben Bienvenu in a note about these developments.